Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body and the Law

This entirely new look at the Gothic from the eighteenth century to the present day relates the concerns of Gothic to the Law. At the same time, it advances a decisively new theory of the relations between wreiting and loss, drawing upon the ideas of Freud, Melanie Klein, James Hillman, and Deleuze and Guattari. Each chapter examines a different corpus of material, ranging from classic texts such as Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights to contemporary works; among the contemporary texts are horror fictions by, for example, Stephen King and Robert Bloch, as well as 'postmodern' writing by William Gibson, Don Delillo and many others. The book also includes discussion of Chinese fictions which have a close relation to Gothic. The approaches to this material are eclectic, but central are psychoANALYSIS and deconstruction. Amid the current wave of criticism of the Gothic, this book stands out both for the novelty and cogency of its theoretical approach and for the intensity of the relations it suggests between Gothic writing and contemporary anxieties in the areas of, for example, the Law, censorship and child abuse. David Punter is here building upon the international success of his previous seminal book on the Gothic, The literature of Terror, and in doing so transforms many of our preconceptions about classic and contemporary Gothic writing.

Table of Contents:
Gothic Origins: The Haunting of the Text The Gothic and the Law: limits of the Permissible Laws which Bind the Body: The Case of the Monster Re-enactments of the Primal Scene: The Example of Zastrozzi Regimes of Terror: From Robespierre to Conrad Identification and Gender: The Law of Ligeia A Descent into the Body: Wuthering Heights Psychopathology: Contamination and the House of Gothic Laws of Recollection and Reconstruction: Stephen King The Body Sublime: Liu Suola's King of Singers Gothic After/Words: Abuse and the Body Beyond the Law

About the Author :
DAVID PUNTER is Professor of English Studies at the University of Stirling, where he has been since 1988. Previously he was Professor and Head of Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a past President of the British Association for Romantic Studies and Chair of the Council for College and University English. He has published extensively on Gothic, romantic and contemporary writing, as well as on literature and psychoANALYSIS.

Review :
'This book maintains David Punter's well-earned stature as a major teacher of us all about the most basic drives in Gothic writing, ones that he reveals with new intensity and power in this provocative and complex study.' - Gothic Studies 'A rich work of critical bricolage...Punter's intensely political engagement.' - Steven Bruhm, Romanticism On the Net